Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, RISE) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputies Pringle, Connolly and Collins for this excellent and timely motion. It aims to end the current situation whereby public money is invested indirectly through ISIF in damaging fossil fuel investments and agribusiness in the global south. It highlights Ireland’s role as a conduit for billions of euro of investment in damaging fossil fuels. In particular, I highlight the call for Ireland to take a lead in a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty.

That demand is extremely timely given the final text agreed at COP28, which emerged a couple of hours ago. For the 28th time, the news from COP is not good. We see a failure of the COP process and global leaders protecting the interest of the fossil fuel industry at the expense of small island nations and the future of all our children and grandchildren. What we needed to have any hope of averting catastrophic climate collapse of 2°C of global heating was a cast-iron commitment to a complete phase-out of fossil fuels. What we got was more of the same: more of the same hedging that tries to blur the distinction between ending fossil fuels and continuing them; more of the same diplomatic language that hides the sentencing to death of billions of people in the poorest countries in the world; more of the same polite fudges to cover over the destruction of a liveable future for our children and grandchildren.

I heard the Minister, Eamon Ryan, on “Morning Ireland” this morning claiming that transitioning away from fossil fuels and phasing them out mean the same thing in his mind. It does not matter what they mean in Eamon Ryan’s mind; what matters is what they say in the text. That is why thousands of diplomats, thousands of lobbyists from oil and gas companies and big agrifood companies, and the 34 billionaires who flew to the talks on their private jets have been wrangling over this text for the past two weeks. It is because every word, comma and paragraph counts. It matters that those who want to block action on phasing out fossil fuels won on that key question. The chair of the talks, Sultan Al Jaber, who is also the head of the UAE national oil company, knew when he presented a joke of a first draft yesterday that anything else would seem better by comparison and the likes of Eamon Ryan could go on the media, greenwash what has been agreed and claim it is a great compromise and an important step forward.

What does the text actually say? The crucial part is paragraph 28, which “calls on Parties to contribute to the following global efforts, in a nationally determined manner, taking into account the Paris Agreement and their different national circumstances, pathways and approaches". How many get-out clauses are in that one sentence alone? The small island states which this agreement virtually guarantees will disappear under rising floodwaters have labelled it "a litany of loopholes". “Calls on” means everything that follows is voluntary and not binding on a single country at the talks.

What are the "global efforts” that countries are called on to contribute to, "taking into account ... their different national circumstances, pathways and approaches”?

The first is "accelerating efforts towards the phase-down of unabated coal power", that is, continuing to use coal. The dirtiest form of fossil fuel out there is fine. We just has to use less of it. That is what "phase-down" rather than "phase-out" means. Then there is the word "unabated", so we just have to try to abate it, relying on the fiction of carbon capture and storage technologies that have not been invented yet to take the carbon back out of the atmosphere after the coal has put it there. The US, which is the biggest historic emitter of carbon and the country with most responsibility for destroying our climate, fought tooth and nail for the science fiction of abatement to be included. For that, it received the Colossal Fossil award from the Climate Action Network of environmental activists, reserved for the biggest and baddest fossil at the conference.

Another global effort that states are called on to contribute to is "Accelerating efforts globally towards net zero emission energy systems, utilizing zero- and low-carbon fuels well before or by around mid-century". Net zero emissions again means carbon capture and storage but also carbon offsetting, which has already been exposed as a complete sham and a scam that simply does not work and makes some corporations even richer. The phrase "zero and low carbon fuels" means continuing to use fossil fuels on the pretence that they are low carbon. Of course, there is no definition in the text of what "low-carbon" means. Presumably even coal will count as being low carbon as long as it is abated with technologies that do not exist. What does "around mid-century" mean? Does it mean 2050, 2055 or 2060? What sort of legal agreement has a non-specific deadline in it? What worker would be a fool to sign an employment contract that promises to pay them around the middle of each month?

The clause that the Minister, Deputy Ryan, and others are using to try and greenwash this historic sell-out and failure is 28(d), where states are called on to contribute, "taking into account ... their different national circumstances, pathways and approaches", to "Transitioning away from fossil fuels in energy systems ... so as to achieve net zero by 2050". Again, we have net zero, which means carbon offsetting and carbon capture and storage. Again, we have no specific binding target for any state, large or small, rich or poor. Without that, every capitalist government in the world can keep placing the burden on other capitalist governments to get to net zero. It is what we do here every time the Minister for agriculture claims that if we did not produce 90% of our beef for export, someone else would do it instead and all that would happen would be that the Irish meat industry would lose out. It is the same version of what Sultan Al Jaber was claiming with Mary Robinson, that we should not worry, we have the lowest carbon and best fossil fuels on earth. It is that suicidal logic of global capitalist competition that is killing the climate, one euro, one dollar, one degree at a time.

That is why it is vital that we do not just pass this motion today saying that the State should take the lead in joining with many other states, small island nations, Latin American countries, the European Parliament and the World Health Organization, who have signed up to a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty. The Government now needs to act on this. I raised this with the Taoiseach yesterday and he did not know anything about it. He said that we have not been shown the text of it, when the point is that the broad principles are out there and we are asking the State to get involved in pushing and driving it because, very clearly, the COP process has failed.

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